Don't Fence Me In

I know everyone is eagerly awaiting the conclusion of our diagram series (or maybe not) but here I am today inspired once again to a different topic. THIS one is the last one before we conclude our prior series. You've got my word on it!

Reading right now in BS&T (Bank Systems and Technology) May 2010 issue page 23 that the new challenge for my industry is to grab clients out of the "freegans". People 18-30 who are "deliberately shifting their economic mobility downward" by "sleeping in abandoned buildings, dumpster diving for food and playing music on street corners to pay for basic needs..." I think they used to call this being a Hippy (Hippie) back in the day but every generation deserves its own terminology.

At any rate, that's fine and I say go for it but what about those of us stuck on the fringes of these large generational demographics or the large numbers who don't fit into the "norm"? I'm way on the tail end of the very annoying "baby-boomer" generation. I've heard so much about baby-boomers that I can't stand them and I'm supposed to be one of them. From all of the marketing that I see I should have silver hair, be playing golf and spending my time looking very sophisticated as I discuss why I trust my retirement to ACME Little Wonder Financial Services and why I bleach my teeth at my local dentist.

But that's not me! I don't have silver hair - yet - I'm not even close to getting ready to retire and I plan on working on some project until I drop. I've just delved deeper into "doing my own thing" after devoting too many years to the pursuit of who knows what in corporate American, I decided to join the group that I mentioned in my prior post as a "voting member" and I'm writing a fantasy novel. My husband is a long haired vet who just likes to be calm, work in the yard (more power to him) and collect trains and my son is a "freegan" who lives at home as he's building his writing and game design reputation and trust me he's got no money so good luck giving him an account although you could give him a loan so he can help defray the cost of all the hot water he uses. He shuns every type of social media that there is claiming that "I don't want to be anyone's friend and I don't want to spend my time starting at a screen any more than I have to."

To top it all off someone sent me a link to a data aggregator on the web under my name - it said I was self employed and the value of my house was $ 1 million and it showed that my son has an income of between $50 and $70 thousand.

So my point is - we've got computers aggregating garbage data and tossing it out for marketing purposes on individuals that some yahoo somewhere has categorized into a certain demographic group. Then we have people marketing this picture of normalcy to the public so they can sell products to them and if they don't buy those products they don't fit in.

Has anyone ever thought about how messed up we're getting? Better question: has anyone ever thought of all the money they aren't making because perhaps the majority refuses to believe that they should act a certain way or buy a certain product?

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Follow one Business Systems Analyst, who has taken on this newly created position after 17 years of exploring various technical roles, as she leads you through the everyday challenges of several projects, including developing a new BI initiative and implementing a new CRM solution, and shares some helpful advice and pearls of wisdom along the way.
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